'Rang De Basanti'

The Movie Club's ninth show happened today. Guess which movie we screened? Its 'Rang De Basanti' :)
But so far, this is the best show we ever did. We collected about 20k for our NGO from this show.
Of course, it was not a cake walk though. We literally toiled for two days with out food and rest just to make sure that the show would be a success.
Till yesterday morning, things were going pretty much at normal pace. We talked to a theatre guy and fixed 2 shows, one this Saturday and the other, this Sunday. While the Saturday show was for 100 tickets, the Sunday one was for 150.
Though it was very problematic for us to split people against the shows, we didn't have any other option then.
However, at about 12:45 PM yesterday, the Prasads Multiplex Manager called me and asked me if we wanted to do the 'Rang De Basanti' show at 7:30 PM today (26 Jan) for full house (375 tickets @ 150/- each). It sounded really tempting but I was very much reluctant due to many reasons.
One, we actually paid the Sensation theatre guy the advance of 15,000/- already for which unfortunately we did not have any receipt. The second was that we were planning to do this show for a premium and already made a promise to 'Oracle Volunteers' that we would donate the extra money to an NGO called 'Lakshya Sadhana'. Third reason was that there was simply no time. The show was about 30 hours away and we have not yet started with the booking, forget about collection, allocation and distribution.
However, I some how felt this would work. I once again called him and asked him if he could reduce the price and give the tickets in partial (instead of giving us the entire full house). To my luck, he finally reduced the price to 115/- a ticket and promised us to give partial booking if the booking is more than 200. I got my deal. I took the risk and cancelled the sensation show. I opened the booking site, kept the initial count as 350 tickets, sent out the org wide mail and then, went to have my lunch. While I was in the cafeteria, I got this call asking me if there were any extra tickets available. I told them to actually book from the site and that I have just opened it up. Guess what the answer was!!! The tickets are already SOLD!!!!!!!!
350 tickets in 23 minutes flat. Phew....this is a record for us. The previous record was 'Rising' where we sold 200 tickets in 48 minutes.
I could not have my lunch any more and so, I ran up to my desk and verify this. When I opened the database, I could see all the tickets booked up.
Also, many people called us and asked us if they could be accommodated. Again, I had a decision to make. Whether or not to do a second show. I thought even this would go off. So, I arranged a second show and opened the site again for this. This time, we had about 150 bookings and I thought I would stop it there because it was already 5:00 PM and any further bookings would be a burden in terms of collection and allocation.

And then started my 'Marathon'. Things like talking to all the people, getting the money collected from employees spread across various buildings, going to the theatre for paying him, getting the tickets and sorting them out.
All my team members did a wonderful job. We were all awake till about 4:00 in the morning just to finish off the allocation.
Finally at the theatre today, we saw the result of all our efforts. Employees were really impressed by the show and congratulated us for it. Also, the amount we collected form this show surpassed the ‘Swades’ collection, which was around 15k.

About the movie, well, this is my first movie in the past 8 months. I liked it. Especially, the camera work was innovative and impressive. Also, the movie was kind of fresh in terms of screenplay, action and direction. The songs are amazing and truly moving. Particularly, the 'Thodi si Dhool Meri' was amazing....Hats off to AR. However, the story was a little narrow. Though the director wanted to draw parallels between the Indian rebel leaders(Bhagat Singh, Netaji and all) and the modern generation and how both these have and could bring a radical change in the society, the narration lacked the vigor and was like a typical bollywood movie.
All said, it’s a movie really worth watching and is a good value for money.
Thts all for now. Shall get back soon.
Luvz